This is an interesting field guide that might be more accessable to younger birders than your rtypical Peterson's or Sibley's guide. The first thing that strikes me is that the birds are arranged by their dominant color. This might be particulary helpful for birding beginners, and is interesting as sexually dimorphic birds often have males and females in different sections (i.e. the female cardinal is in the brown section, while the male is in the red). Typical guides arranged by taxonomy can be difficult for beginners to learn (many fail to see the difference between water birds like ducks and loons, for example) so this is a helpful feature. Also, by focusing on La and Ms, there are of course fewer birds than in Eastern and Central guides, so each bird has a full page picture, and a more accurate range map divided into year round, spring, summer, and migration. It is rather comprehensive, I can only think of one or two species I have sighted in my area that aren't covered (whisting ducks, a newer species) I think that this specificity is helpful even for experienced birders like myself.

The one down side to this book is that by giving each species a full page picture and often having to have two entries per species, is that the book is not significantly lighter or smaller than many other guides. I have often seen younger birders get frustrating having to flip through almost 400 pages, so this might be a good intermediate between the "my first" type guides and the more professional guides. Also, it is harder to compare differences between similar species than say a Peterson's guide where similar species are often drawn on the same page next to each other. ( )